


i fell in love with her in stages

by hotdogluke



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: During Canon, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28450659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotdogluke/pseuds/hotdogluke
Summary: Or where Luke falls more in love with Julie every moment they have together. Juke. One shot.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 167





	i fell in love with her in stages

It starts when he first hears her sing.

Sure, he was interested from the moment they met, when she marched into her ( _their_ ) studio in her glasses and goofy slippers armed with nothing but a cross and an attitude. She faced off against three ghosts barging in on her mom’s special place and claiming it as their own with a level of poise and relative calm that he still isn’t sure don’t indicate that she knew ghosts existed before she met them.

But it _starts_ as he watches her play the grand piano and sing her heart out to the song her mom wrote. He wants to compare her voice to an angel, but that doesn’t do her justice; it feels too soft, too dismissive. This girl is an absolute _powerhouse_ , her voice a force of nature so great it almost doesn’t make physical sense for it to be contained in her tiny body. 

The song seems appropriately named, because as she sings “Wake Up,” he can see something in _her_ waking up, like a golden glow emanating from within her and lighting her up from the inside out. The entire room glows with her, and logically he knows that it’s probably the sun shining in through the windows behind them as it rises to bring the morning, but another part of him desperately wants to believe that Julie Molina was the sun all along.

As she finishes the song and he watches her in awe, unseen ~~like a creep~~ , he feels it for the first time. It’s a slight sinking feeling in his stomach, not unpleasant, kind of like he remembers feeling on the rollercoasters he used to love. His thoughts scatter and focus all at once, narrowing in on _her_. His chest feels bubbly, like someone filled it with soda and then shook it.

He blames it on still processing the previous night’s events.

But then he feels it again, after his inexplicable _need_ to convince her to stick with her school’s music program is alleviated when she starts to agree. When she sings again—a song _he_ wrote—openly, knowing he’s listening to her, the same sinking feeling and scattered thoughts and soda-filled chest come back, stronger this time. He joins in and sings with her, and it’s like being struck by lightning. Their voices blend perfectly together, like smoke curling from their chests and intermingling between them.

And then she looks to him, at the pep rally. She looks to _him_ , and for a moment he’s so distracted by how the stage seems made for her—or she seems made for the stage—that he almost doesn’t realize that she’s looking for support. So he gives her a nod and mutters encouraging words, probably too low for her to hear, but she nods back and starts playing and everything starts all over again.

When they sing together, _really_ sing together in a performance, for the first time, he feels his own voice bend to hers, almost without him even trying. Normally, he loves the spotlight and tends to overpower his bandmates’ voices, but when she sings with him, everything changes. He backs off, his voice getting softer before he has to think about it, as if even his subconscious and the laws of sound and nature know that it’s all about _her_. He pretends he can see his voice caressing hers in the air, emphasizing her power even more rather than competing with it.

She smiles and jumps and laughs and _performs_ , and then she offers him her microphone and as he turns to her it’s like he’s been teetering on the edge of a cliff and he finally just took the leap. He can’t help but laugh a little at the thrill of falling as they bow together after the song.

The usual feelings come back again when they perform for her best friend, this time along with a breathlessness he’s not sure should be possible considering his ~~death~~ _condition_ and its accompanying symptom of not needing to breathe. When she agrees to join the band, it’s all he can do to just grin and shake his head in awe of her, of the risk she was willing to take to repair her relationship with her friend, even if it meant Flynn would think she was crazy.

It’s really not a wonder why _she_ was the one to bring Luke and the boys back as ghosts, or why people can actually see them when they play with her. Julie Molina is a force of nature unto herself. Her power goes beyond just her voice and her music—it’s everything about her.

So when the first jolt hits after their visit to the Hollywood Ghost Club, Luke thinks it might be Julie who caused it. She’s never been angry at them before, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the force of her emotions was affecting them like this. Or more, maybe nature itself is hurting them the way they hurt her, because she certainly seems to be at the center of the universe.

But when he asks Alex and Reggie after the jolt if they’re having side effects too, they look at him like he’s lost his last marble. Apparently, he’s the only one who feels like he can’t breathe, like maybe his ghostly form needed his heart after all and it’s been ripped from his body.

As he stares in the direction Julie went, he realizes that may not be so far off from the truth.

When Julie agrees to join the band again, he feels like he might be flying. Even after watching his parents cry over his birthday cake, he feels like maybe everything can be okay as long as he’s with Julie. Because the bubbliness comes back, and with it that thrill from their first performance together, and he realizes that maybe flying and falling are a little bit of the same thing.

And then they perform “Finally Free,” and she’s all lit up from within and glowing in the spotlight, and as he sings with her he finds himself singing _to_ her as well. Because if he’s learned everything with all these feelings he can’t quite explain, it’s that she _is_ a part of him. Now till eternity.

And then, as he watches her finish the song and the electricity he feels from singing with her slowly dissolves from his veins, he’s struck by a rare moment of clarity. He should’ve known it the moment he first felt it, and honestly maybe he did know it, deep down, and that’s why he hasn’t really been trying all that hard to figure out what the feelings meant.

This whole time, he’s been falling in love with her. Little by little (or, maybe, a lot by a lot), with every interaction and everything he’s learned about her and from her, he’s fallen head over heels.

And once he realizes it, he can’t stop himself from doing something about it. He knows it’s a long shot, but if he lays on the flirting a little thicker than usual, maybe she’ll give him some sort of sign that she feels the same way, and then they can figure out where to go from there.

But the plan fails. Miserably.

When they perform at the garage party, she won’t even look at him. The feeling from their fight comes back, and he half expects a jolt to hit him in the middle of their performance. He tries to apologize in the only way he knows how—through music—as he cautiously approaches her during his guitar solo and tries to take back all of it with his eyes. But then leans a little from on top of the piano, scrunches her nose and smiles at him with stars in her eyes, and then she stands up and practically _explodes_ with power and beauty and music.

A part of him recognizes that maybe it’s unhealthy that his emotions rely so heavily on this girl, but another part of him knows that that’s just part of her power. He knows the other guys feel it too: they don’t really have lives of their own to worry about, so they’re extra in tune with the way the world seems a little off whenever Julie is unhappy.

But now the world is shimmering in colors brighter than Luke has ever seen. As Julie sits down at the piano to finish the song, he comes up behind her to sing with her. He’s so close he can see himself amongst the stars in her midnight eyes, and he feels like he could really be floating in space with the way she’s looking at him.

He almost tries to kiss her then, as if maybe _wanting_ it bad enough will make it possible to actually touch her, but then the crowd starts cheering and he disappears before he does something he’ll regret.

He almost tells her he loves her when she shows “Unsaid Emily” to his parents. At first, he was mad at her for spying on him, but even then he couldn’t find it in himself to turn away from her. But now, seeing his mother’s eyes glisten as she reads the things he wishes he had told her when he was alive, he doesn’t think he’s ever loved Julie more.

Yet somehow, Julie isn’t glowing in the way he’s used to seeing her. As he watches tears spill down her cheeks and hates not being able to wipe them away, the magic he’s unknowingly begun to surround her with fades away. Her power is still there, more power than any other person he’s ever known, but she’s still just a _person_. The world and laws of nature don’t bend to her, and she’s broken just like he is.

She’s _real_ , and she understands, and she did this for him because that’s just who she is. And he loves her all the more for it.

So when Caleb kidnaps him and the boys and forces them to play in his band against their will, Luke’s only thought is Julie. He refuses to disappoint her again, and maybe a part of him still believes she has a little magic and myth in her, because he finds himself silently pleading to the universe as he looks between his friends and the clock.

 _Do this for her_ , he says in his mind like a mantra, trying to channel the power Julie has given him. He imagines her face, disappointed and concerned, and he sets his jaw. He lost his chance to play the Orpheum, but he will _not_ let Julie lose hers.

He realizes he might have some power all his own. He _believes_ , and he has an almost unhealthy reservoir of determination and perseverance that he will scrape to the very bottom if that’s what it takes to get what he wants. And right now, all he wants is to be there for her.

In between songs, while Caleb is mingling with guests, Luke gestures Reggie over to Alex’s drum set. The boys look at him with confused, grim faces.

“Please tell me there’s a plan,” Reggie says, taking off his suit jacket.

Luke nods. “Caleb isn’t all-powerful. And making all these ghosts appear to the living must take a lot out of him, so maybe that makes his control on us weaker. I’m gonna try to get him to use more power on me, and then maybe you guys will be able to poof out and get to Julie, and you can perform with her and then cross over.”

Reggie grins. “I like that plan.”

Alex purses his lips, and Luke can’t meet his eyes. Luke was hoping Alex would just go with the plan and not think about it too much, but this is Alex. Luke never stood a chance. “What about you?” Alex asks. “How are you gonna get there?”

Luke doesn’t say anything, and Reggie’s face falls. Alex looks between them, his knuckles turning white as he grips his drumsticks.

“No,” Alex says. “We’re not crossing over without you. We’re not leaving you here.”

Reggie nods. “I can’t believe you even thought we would.”

“I wasn’t really planning on you realizing it until you were already gone,” Luke mutters. Then he sighs, looking at his stupidly loyal friends desperately. “ _Please_ ,” he says. “We can’t let her down again.”

Alex and Reggie glance at each other with solemn faces. They love Julie just as much as he does. It may be different, but they love her just the same. And he knows that when they cross over, they’ll take care of her in every way they can, just as much as he would, even though he knows that she’s really been the one taking care of them this whole time.

Slowly, Alex and Reggie nod, and Luke exhales with relief. This will work. It _has_ to work. They won’t let Julie down again, and Alex and Reggie will be able to cross over.

Luke swallows. “If—if you get the chance, will you tell her…” He trails off, unsure what to say. That he loves her doesn’t seem to encapsulate all he feels for her, especially if the statement comes from Alex and Reggie instead of him.

But Alex looks at him with understanding, glistening eyes. “We’ll tell her.” Luke’s vision gets blurry with tears, and Reggie wipes his own face. “ _But_ ,” Alex adds, pointing a drumstick at Luke, “when we’re gone, you are going to try with every ounce of your soul to get out of here too, understand? You should tell her yourself.”

So Luke sneaks out of the club, discarding his suit jacket as well and adjusting his look to feel more _him_. He may be stuck with Caleb, but he refuses to give up who he is.

He’s barely a block away when Caleb appears in front of him, arms crossed.

“You really thought you could escape me?” he asks, and Luke is hit with another painful jolt that knocks him to his knees. “You’re _mine_.”

Luke just glares at him, jaw clenched in pain, as the jolt passes. He sends one last plea out into the universe that Alex and Reggie are able to make it to Julie, and then he resists as much as he can as Caleb tries to force him to poof back to the club. Caleb clenches his teeth and narrows his eyes, and Luke feels himself slowly dissolving despite his resistance.

He doesn’t even get the chance to hope it was enough, because the Hollywood Ghost Club is chaos when he appears on the stage. Caleb appears next to him, and confusion and then anger flash across his face, before he composes himself and tries to settle the audience.

Luke blinks and finally registers what the fuss is about. Some kind of alarm is screaming through the building, louder than it should be, and he didn’t even notice because he’s so worried about his friends. Lifers and ghosts alike are covering their ears and panicking, trying to get to the exits.

Then Luke catches a flash of white teeth in the middle of the crowd, and Willie just winks and puts a finger to his lips before he disappears.

So while Caleb is as distracted as he can get, Luke pictures Julie and the Orpheum in his mind and tries to teleport there. He catches a glimpse of a new audience, hears a second of the song’s hook, and starts playing his guitar before he reappears in the Hollywood Ghost Club.

He clenches his jaw and tries again, scraping every last bit of his determination and putting it into this one task. Again, he almost makes it, but he’s pulled back to the chaos of the club.

He closes his eyes and shuts everything out and listening to Julie’s voice singing in his mind. He plays along with her, and then the lighting behind his eyelids shifts and he opens his eyes. He looks over and sees her, pleading with her eyes for him to stay as she continues singing with every bit of her heart and soul.

This time, when he reappears in the Hollywood Ghost Club, he _jumps_ forward, towards the microphone stand he can see in his mind, and sings the next lyrics with every ounce of his soul.

And this time, he stays.

He doesn’t get the chance to tell her anything before they disappear, but they’re immediately shocked by a jolt backstage that brings them all to the ground.

“What happened?” Reggie grunts as the crowd’s cheers fade into the roaring in Luke’s ears. “We were supposed to cross over.”

“I guess—” Alex cuts off as the three of them are hit with another jolt. “We were wrong. This wasn’t our unfinished business.”

“The studio,” Luke gasps through his pain.

“We can’t let Julie see us like this,” Alex says as the jolt passes and they all relax in an exhausted heap on the ground.

“If we stay here, she’ll see us anyway. Plus, she’ll be so tired after tonight, she’ll probably go straight to bed,” Luke says. “Please,” he adds, a little softer. “It’s home.” _And at least I can say goodbye to some part of her._

Alex sighs and nods, and the three of them use their last bits of strength to poof to the garage. Luke tries to get up and find something to write her a note, but he’s so weak he can’t do much more than lift his head.

When Julie finds them and they have to explain what happened, he falls for her a little more. But this time, it’s the tragic kind of love, the kind that wraps around your throat and chokes out everything you have. And he knows he has to do this _now_ , or he’ll go out once again without saying the most important things to the most important person.

So he forces himself up and walks to her, and even as she begs them to leave with tears streaming down her face, she’s still glowing in that new, _real_ way he’s still getting used to. And he knows that she loves him and Alex and Reggie so fiercely that she feels every jolt just as painfully as they do.

He tries to find the words, but the best he can come up with is, “No music is worth making, Julie, if we’re not making it with you.”

And then she hugs him—actually _hugs_ him—and he throws away every notion he had of her being _“just a person”_ as he wraps his arms around her. The laws of nature really do bend to her will, because somehow she made him _tangible_ and now he’s holding her in his arms like he’s wanted to since he met her, and if his soul has to be destroyed at least he gets to go out like this.

He buries his face in her neck, squeezing her so hard he’s worried she’ll break, but then suddenly she pulls away and the entire _room_ is glowing now. Or, he realizes when she takes his face in her hands and he takes her face in his, _he’s_ the one glowing.

He can practically feel her power affecting him, making him stronger, and it works for Alex and Reggie, too. Serves him right for underestimating Julie Molina.

After that night, something changes between the two of them. It isn’t just the constant touches or the secretive smiles or the nights spent snuggling in her bed and whispering in the darkness. It’s something deeper, like the electricity between them when they’re performing is there all the time now, coursing through his veins and making him feel more alive than he’s felt since he…well, _stopped_ being alive.

A couple months after they play the Orpheum, Luke finds himself in Julie’s bed on a lazy afternoon, watching some movie on her laptop that he’s really only half paying attention to. He’s lounging against her pillows, and her head is resting on the spot between his shoulder and his chest. He’s combing his fingers through her curls absentmindedly, occasionally becoming conscious of what he’s doing and stopping, until she tilts her head back against his hand to get him to keep going.

His free hand rests on his stomach, his fingertips just centimeters away from hers. Every so often, he’ll flex a finger, just to feel it brush against hers as she does the same.

“Are we still watching this?” she asks about halfway through the movie, her words drawn out and lazy.

“Not even a little,” he admits, and he feels the shift of her cheek against him as she smiles.

“Mmm,” she hums comfortably, somehow snuggling closer to him. If his heart still beat, he imagines it would be bordering on painful right now. Still, he gets the familiar happy sinking in his belly and bubbles in his chest. “I’m not moving to turn it off, though.”

He yawns. Even though he doesn’t need sleep, being a ghost and all, being with Julie like this makes him tired anyway, like he could curl up with her in his arms and drift off to a world where he actually has a heartbeat.

“I’m not sure I would’ve let you up if you tried,” he tells her.

She laughs a little, and he gently detangles his fingers from her hair to wrap his arm around her and squeeze her against him. He closes his eyes and exhales, trying to memorize this feeling.

Then, suddenly, Julie sighs and sits up.

“Hey,” he complains, opening his eyes to meet hers. Ghosts can’t technically feel much in terms of temperatures, but his side feels colder without Julie pressed into it.

She smiles a little and takes both of his hands, pulling him into more of a sitting position before reaching over and shutting her laptop. Then she looks at him again, tilting her head with that soft smile on her face.

“What’s bothering you?” she asks him.

“You said you weren’t gonna get up, and then you did.”

She laughs a little and rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I meant. C’mon, Luke. You can talk to me.”

He purses his lips. “I just…wish this could be real.”

Her eyebrows scrunch together a little. “I promise you, this is very real.”

He meets her eyes. “No, I mean…” He sighs. “I’m dead, Jules. Alex thinks that this touching thing won’t last. So I feel like…like this is just a dream or something, you know? Like this is all we’ll ever get to be.”

“Do you…want us to be more?”

He shoots her a look, a half-sad smile on his face, before looking down. “I thought that was obvious,” he says quietly, playing with a string on her comforter.

Julie rests her hand on top of his, and he looks up at her again. She’s still giving him that soft, understanding smile, and he wants so badly to believe that everything’s going to be okay.

And then she kisses him.

None of the feelings he had before even compare to the chaos going through him right now. But it’s the beautiful kind of chaos, like a meteor shower or an audience at a concert or an unusually loud alarm allowing him to escape the Hollywood Ghost Club.

He grabs her face in his hands and he could swear he feels the world shifting and bending to Julie’s will. Her will to be with him.

She smiles against his lips, and he can’t help but smile too as she wraps her arms around his neck because maybe everything _will_ be okay. She pulls away and laughs like a song, her nose bumping against his, and in that moment he knows he would suffer through a million of Caleb’s jolts just to hear her laugh again.

“I love you,” he whispers, as if saying it too loud might shatter the moment.

She kisses him again, and now he’s positive everything will be okay, because the force of nature that is Julie Molina could probably bring him back to life by sheer force of will if she really put her mind to it (although, for now he’d rather she didn’t, because it might get her in trouble with a deity or two and that would add even more obstacles to their relationship). And if she wants to be with him—which, he must be the luckiest guy in the world because he’s pretty sure she _does_ —then dammit, Julie Molina will find a way.

“I love you, too,” she tells him.

As it turns out, no angry deity was necessary, because hearing her say those four words, he's never felt more alive.


End file.
